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Office cleaners fighting for pay rights

Office cleaners, predominantly visible minorities from Central and South America, are among the most invisible of low-paid workers. Primarily women, they often work alone, and through the night.

A cleaner works in the lobby of Commerce Court West in downtown Toronto. Roughly 22,000 office cleaners are employed in the GTA. (AARON HARRIS / TORONTO STAR)

But the lowly scrubbers of the city's tiles and toilets are front and centre in a campaign for better wages and working conditions that pits a big North American union against the Toronto cleaning industry's last big holdout.

The Service Employees International Union is leading the unionization drive, known across North America as "Justice for Janitors." In Toronto, the movement began with the union quietly trying to convince the city's four major cleaning companies to agree to a city-wide standard that would stop the decline of cleaners' wages as they bid for competing contracts.

Two of the Big Four companies – Hurley and Unicco – signed city-wide agreements last year. Another union, the Labourers' International Union of North America, organized cleaners working for a third company, Omni.

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But the fourth company, Hallmark Housekeeping, has become embroiled in a nasty fight with the SEIU's Local 2, which has filed a complaint with the Ontario Labour Relations Board, alleging rampant employment violations, threats and firings of cleaners, as well as interference with the union process after the company unexpectedly struck an agreement last month with another union.

Among SEIU's alleged violations is a claim that Hallmark has misclassified in excess of 25 per cent of its cleaners as "subcontractors," evading labour protection laws and denying workers their rights.

Hallmark Housekeeping Services Inc., which over the years has won such lucrative cleaning contracts as Scotia Plaza, the Rogers Centre, Manulife Financial and other properties owned by Cadillac Fairview, declined an interview with the Star pending the labour board's review.

In an emailed letter, however, human resources manager Susanne Doherty said, "independent contracting is a practice used in our industry (and many other industries) – and this is the issue that SEIU wants to focus on."

"Most of our staff are regular employees," she said. "These employees are on our payroll, receive wages, and have all normal statutory reductions (sic)."

The dispute has put the owners and managers of Toronto's glitzy office buildings, high-priced condos and shopping malls on notice, and at a time when Cadillac Fairview has its entire Ontario real estate portfolio out for cleaning contract bids. The bids, totalling $16 million and including the Eaton Centre, close today.

The "Justice for Janitors" campaign, dubbed J4J, has seen considerable success across the United States in recent years – notably in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Miami and Houston. But it has been marked by sympathy hunger strikes, student campus protests, church leaders speaking out in support and unions lobbying potentially sympathetic building owners – primarily pension funds – to pressure cleaning contractors to allow the unionization of their janitors.

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"It tries to organize the employers rather than the employees," said University of British Columbia sociology professor Luis Aguiar, who has been researching the J4J movement. "I think SEIU has been very creative."

Roughly 22,000 office cleaners work in the GTA for scores of companies, more than half in Toronto. Most cleaners earn an $8 minimum wage or close to it; other unionized workers earn about $9 to $12 an hour. But a growing number are undocumented workers open to abuse, including subcontracting, union officials say.

"The difficulty in this industry is people are paid such low wages that they are really a paycheque away from not being able to make their rent or buy groceries," said SEIU union organizer Tom Galivan.

Traditionally, cleaners have become organized building by building, and by different unions. For example, before signing onto the city-wide agreement, Unicco employees were unionized in some buildings, but not others. With limited successor rights in Ontario, the danger was that a company could underbid Unicco and conceivably bring in new cleaners or subcontractors as cheaper labour. The SEIU has been pushing for an industry-wide standard, similar to one in Montreal, which would stop job losses and the downward pressure of wages in all Toronto buildings.

In Montreal, a city-wide decree governs all building service contracts equally, with cleaners earning $13.90 to $14.80 an hour, plus benefits and sick leave.

In its complaint to the Ontario labour ministry, the SEIU alleges Hallmark "subcontractors" wear company uniforms and use company equipment, but are denied overtime pay, statutory holiday pay and injury coverage. In some cases, the union claims, supervisors are deducting 10 per cent off cleaners' wages as an "administrative fee."

One Mexican worker who met with the Star on condition of anonymity said through a translator he works 15-hour days, five days a week as a subcontractor, mopping floors in a Bloor St. office building. Despite the long hours, the 56-year-old undocumented worker said he earns $9.75 an hour in cash, with no overtime or holiday pay.

His supervisor also takes 10 per cent off his pay for an "administrative fee," but to complain runs the risk of losing his job, he said.

Another worker, also from Mexico, said a supervisor told him at the start there was no overtime, and that workers are encouraged to start up their own subcontracting company if they want extra hours.

Hallmark's Doherty said the company abides by labour laws and has "constructive" relationships with trade unions under 20 collective agreements for individual buildings scattered around Toronto and beyond. The company would not say how many of their Toronto cleaners are unionized.

"With respect to the recent allegations involving employees of certain subcontractors, Hallmark is looking into these allegations of misconduct and impropriety," Doherty wrote.

Sinan Altay, a 41-year-old man who mops 14 floors in a 30-storey office building at King and Yonge Sts. for Hallmark, said bidding wars among cleaning contractors can cause significant job instability.

"It's the unfair competition," said Altay, who has worked as a subcontractor for other companies, but now works in a unionized Hallmark building and is paid $11.90 an hour for a 30-hour work week. "My issue is not with Hallmark, it is with the industry. It has to be fixed."

The union campaign has heated up in recent months. The SEIU created a website targeting Hallmark, and posted videos of workers complaining about poor working conditions, including one who claimed his supervisor arranged for him to live with 14 others in an overcrowded house with a single toilet.

The company said it was investigating the allegations. But it also fired back with accusations that the union is being driven less by any improprieties than using hard-line pressure tactics to force the company to recognize SEIU as bargaining agent for its employees.

Using a pressure tactic applied in the J4J movement south of the border, SEIU also notified about 30 building owners, property managers and pension plan groups regarding Hallmark's alleged subcontracting, which could be a breach of their cleaning contracts.

Few responded. Cadillac Fairview, wholly owned by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Group, responded by saying it approached Hallmark and was satisfied no subcontracting was occurring in its Hallmark-cleaned buildings. Property manager Bentall Capital, partially owned by a subsidiary of Caisse de dépôt et placement du Quebec, a major Canadian pension fund, conducted an internal audit and concluded the same.

Hallmark isn't sitting back. It recently issued a memo to staff accusing the SEIU of spreading false information. Then last month, in a surprise move, it agreed to recognize the new Canadian Construction Workers Union, headed by controversial labour union president Tony Dionisio, as representative of its cleaners.

The SEIU complained to the labour board, accusing Hallmark of interference to defeat its campaign.

Richard Rees, director of business development at Unicco, an international company whose 2,000 Toronto cleaners are all unionized now, said a city-wide agreement in the cleaning industry makes sense from a business standpoint. "And from a human standpoint, I think it's the best thing that could happen to the cleaning staff in Toronto."

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